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An 11-year-old Silver Trail Middle School honors student has been suspended for having a dull butter knife in her lunch bag---and using it---to cut a peach in half.
The police are involved, and in their reporting to state prosecutors, they note that the girl used the knife to cut a peach.
In defense of their daughter, the shocked parents explained they had given their daughter a set of utensils "made for children to learn how to eat properly."
Some personal thoughts on this, and a Christmas message of hope and truth from the great Paul Harvey.
Despite the educational purpose of the dull butter knife, the school officials pounced on the child---who is an honor student---reporting the "knife" to the authorities.
There's irony in the fact that the little girl cut the peach so she could share it with a hungry friend while they were having lunch together in the school cafeteria.
They call it "zero tolerance."
I call it zero common sense.
A common sense response would have given the girl a gold star for sharing and kindness. But instead, the county's zero tolerance policy toward weapons required punishment.
The Heritage Foundation's "Daily Signal" has written a more complete article on this incident. I recommend you read it---particularly if you have children or grandchildren in public school.
Heritage says, "The zero tolerance policy prohibits possession of a Class B weapon on school premises. This includes such items as razor blades, nunchakus, shotgun shells and knives---including a "blunt-bladed table knife."
You would think that someone along the chain of command would have the common sense and discretion to understand that an 11-year-old cutting a peach with a child's butter knife is not the type of evil that a school weapons ban is intended to protect against.
Taxpayers are now paying for a criminal investigation into the matter.
Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident---it's another example, one of many, of the over-reaction by secular progressives.
An Ohio 10th grader gave a class presentation on how to make a healthy breakfast, which included an apple that he sliced in front of the class. He was suspended from school for possessing a weapon on campus.
A California senior was charged with a misdemeanor after a couple of pocket knives were found in the glove box of his car---left there following a family fishing trip.
In this case, the criminal charge prevented the senior from following in his father's footsteps and becoming a Marine. Charges were ultimately dropped, and he has now joined the Marines.
In 2005, talk show host Michael Savage wrote a book titled, "Liberalism is a Mental Disorder."
The same year, Dr. Lyle Rossiter, a board certified clinical psychologist, wrote a book in which he diagnosed the ideology of the Left as a tangible mental illness.
There are those in the medical field who disagree---to a point.
They believe progressivism and liberalism are not so much a mental disorder, but more a cleverly disguised form of illness already widely studied since the late 1960s---"narcissistic personality disorder." (NPD)
The Mayo Clinic defines NPD as "a mental disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance and a deep need for admiration."
If you review the symptoms that define NPD...and the progressive Left you discover parallel tracks.
The very premise on which the liberal platform of wealth redistribution and social justice are based is jealousy. They want what others have, and they want it without cost to themselves.
Nothing better personifies the fruit of progressive, narcissistic beliefs than Obamacare---which was rammed through Congress, with Nancy Pelosi infamously saying, "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it"---unless, of course, it's the story of an 11-year-old honor student being criminally charged for cutting a peach in half with a child's butter knife so she can share it with a friend in the cafeteria.
God help us.
Hopefully, during this Christmas season, we can indeed turn our thoughts toward how God has extended Himself to help us---by sending His Son to become a man---Emmanuel--God is with us.
The great Paul Harvey told the story, "The Man and the Birds," to illustrate just how God is with us.
I'm discussing this further today on the radio. You may join me live from anywhere in the world at 9 AM PT on the radio, on your phone or on your computer. Here's how.
Be Blessed.